myArt Magazin No. 14 English

Kazuo Shiraga
GI (The Game), 1991
oil on canvas,
73 x 60.5 cm
estimate
€ 240,000 – 280,000
Post-War and
Contemporary
Art auction
27 / 28 November 2019
CHOICE
59
Kazuo Shiraga was one of the most important artists of the Japanese post-war avant-garde and a member of
the Gutai group of artists, which was founded in Osaka in 1954. His works are unusual because he painted with
his feet, a method he stuck to until his death.
Gutai was an important movement for contemporary art, focussing both on the actions of the artists themselves
and on the materialisation of painting. In 1970s Kazuo Shiraga turned to the Zen asceticism of the ‘marathon
monks’ of the Tendai sect. This phase of his work was described in the catalogue for the Gutai exhibition
at the Axel Vervoordt Gallery in 2015 in this way: “making a painting became a spiritual technique.”
Kazuo Shiraga viewed his works – which were predominantly black, white, and red – as a way of finding and
communicating the living “ki”, the vital energy and life force of everything that exists. Shiraga’s oeuvre is all
about his lifelong meditation, his coming to terms with himself, his experiences and his environment.
PETRA SCHÄPERS AND SUSANNE ZIMMERMANN